Posted
by
samzenpus
on Thursday July 12, 2012 @01:50AM
from the a-rose-by-any-other-name dept.

itwbennett writes "Slashdot readers will remember the hullaballoo that arose yesterday over a leaked version of CETA containing key clauses that were 'nearly identical to ones found in ACTA.' Now the European Commission is saying you shouldn't believe every leak you see and that the 'language being negotiated on CETA regarding Internet is now totally different from ACTA.' Well, maybe with the exception of language that appears in both CETA and ACTA but didn't 'originate' in ACTA and therefore doesn't count."

Why yes, but especially this De Gucht guy seems particularly bent on defending the position of certain large American industry organisations. Though that's still a bad one in a sorry lot; he might seem the black sheep but the rest of the flock sure ain't white either.

the good thing about that is that they show to everybody what bunch of fucks they are. The bad thing about this is that this hardly matters. It is as with kids - if t hey ask seemingly innocent question long enough they get an agreement not because we really agree but because we are tired of being asked the same question all t he time. The other problem there is that this is complex matter that does not affect lives directly so there is no majority that would go to EU Parliament with sticks and ropes to hand those assholes. I'd say - hang them all as they do not understand.

Don't confuse the EU Parliament with the EU Commission; the former are elected and do a pretty decent job of being representative of their constituents, the latter are unelected and do a pretty decent job of being representative of anyone who pays for lunch.

Don't fall into that trap. Who appoints them? I don't know, but my guess is EU Parliament? Then they have the power to remove them and appoint someone different, therefore the problem and fault lies there. They try to pull the same crap here in the US ("Blame the unelected bureaucrat, it isn't our fault he's going so badly!") but rarely are these appoints for life (here in the US the only ones I know of are for the Supreme Court and there is a reason for that) so they can be replaced, and therefore any harm

And there's the reason why it's not worth reading the rest of your post. Why not educate yourself? The European Commission is appointed by the European Council, which is comprised of the heads of state of the various members. The indirection between them and the people you elect is huge. In the UK, for example, you vote for a Member of Parliament (MP). The party with the most MPs selects the Prime Minister (modulo coalitions), who is then the UK representative in the European Council. He, along with the other members, is responsible for appointing the members of the European Commission. So, my influence on the Commission is that I vote for someone who may have a vote for the person that has a vote to appoint the person who is supposed to represent me. In contrast, I have 4 MEPs who are supposed to represent me, of whom one is someone I respect and who I can rely on to act in my interests and the others presumably act in the interests of other members of my constituency.

One of the 27 is the Commission President proposed by the European Council[..] and elected by the European Parliament.The Council then appoints the other 26 members of the Commission in agreement with the nominated President, and then the 27 members as a single body are subject to a vote of approval by the European Parliament.

So the parliament has an all-of-them-or-nobody right of approval for the whole commission whose members are picked by the heads of the member states' governments .

The EU Parliament is corrupt as hell too. It is basically a retirement home for politicians that their country has no use for anymore. Obviously because they do such a pointless job they need shitloads of money to do it.

This had maybe some point of truth to it in the 1970s when the EP was not directly elected. Most of the MEPs these days are pretty serious about what they do and becoming a MEP these days is not something that you get to become because you have been a politician for all your life.

Many MEPs are also fairly young career MEPs such as for example Fjellner, Alvaro and in 't Veld. They choose to become MEPs (or rather to try to be elected as MEPs) because they where seriously interested in the EP politics.

Don't confuse the EU Parliament with the EU Commission; the former are elected and do a pretty decent job of being representative of their constituents, the latter are unelected and do a pretty decent job of being representative of anyone who pays for lunch.

And the unelected commission is the only one that can propose a law. The elected parliament cannot.

.... It is as with kids - if t hey ask seemingly innocent question long enough they get an agreement not because we really agree but because we are tired of being asked the same question all t he time.....

It is as with kids - if t hey ask seemingly innocent question long enough they get an agreement not because we really agree but because we are tired of being asked the same question all t he time.

When my kids do this I tell them if they ask again it is going to be time to go sit in the the time out char and when they do ask it again they go right in. It cures them of that problem after only a couple of times. Too bad we can't do it with politicians, as it requires swift immediate action. Maybe if they got voted out of office more often it wouldn't be but they count on constituents having the memory of a gold fish.

The Tories are against all measures that would make the commission either directly elected or appointed by the European parliament. So they are not really the best people to refer to in this question.

The reason that the tories hate Europe is that they want their own empire back; complaints about that the commission is not elected are just easy points to sell their ideas to the public, however the Tories fail to see that complaining about this and doing something about it will work against their own policies

European Commission are corporate whores. They don't really care about wants and needs of the people and never ever had. How is this news? They had same kind of "screw everyone, we'll do what we want" attitude when it came to software patents several years ago.

You don't want to function like the US either. All that means is their "responsibility" is to whichever lobbyist pays them the most while they make empty promises to the supposed "consituents" they serve and still do whatever the heck they want as long as it gets them a nice big donation.

You think the US 2-party system has ANY accountability to the voter whatsoever?

I've always thought it would be kinda interesting to follow an idea from ancient Athens: After someone holding political office had his term end, he was immediately put on trial for his actions while in office, and could be personally punished for those actions (e.g. a treasurer who was caught embezzling funds could have his own property confiscated).

Do you know why this will never happen? Because it is the people who would be subject to this scrutiny that have to vote the law through, and why would they? This is the problem with representative democracy as it stands today: the people who make the rules have learnt how to bend the rules to their own advantage. Anyone who make it in politics is a career politician who has no knowledge of how it is to work for a living in the real world.

No, the Commission did not reject ACTA, the Parliament and the subcommitties did. You know, the people that are actually elected.The commission were the ones that in secret negotiated this crap while refusing to let anyone know what was in it.

The commission did not refuse, they kept asking the other parties to open up. However the US and Japan refused to open up the negotiations. The US claimed that national security was at stake.

Not that the commission handled things that good, and Karel's actions following the MEPs rejection is clearly a reason to sack him.

I would like to ask MEPs: Please subject Karel to a very intense smacking in the EP and if he does not amend his ways, fire him. Yes, I know that de jure you have to fire the entire EC, but you could just tell Barrosso, that he and the others will loose their jobs unless Karel is sacked.

In way it is, because if they keep trying to pull this shit over us, people might start taking the streets and doing some serious protesting.

It's time for a new government, completely, our old one is broken and can not be fixed.

They should be scared, because as much as I don't care for violence, I see a need for a bunch of people to forcefully removed from office and put in gitmo (ya, you should of closed it Obama, now enjoy your stay there.)

They have "negs", designed to make you feel bad and insecure about yourself. Piracy is costing the American economy billions. You're the most beautiful woman/man in this bar. You wouldn't steal a handbag. Of course I have no STIs. You wouldn't steal a car...

They'll buy you drinks and they'll tell you any lie you want to hear. They're an astronaut. They drive a Porche. The wording of CETA is totally different from ACTA.

They'll lie out their arses no matter how many times you say no, because all they need is one yes and they've fucked you.

They're worse. They won't get off your couch, plunder your fridge and demand you buy them more drinks. Once you're broke, they tell you about their STD's and that they don't want to see you anymore because now "you're sick too".

I never said it was a democracy. However, when one looks up an EU Commissioner, the first three pieces of information are State, Party, and Name. When you don't vote for the party, the individual has no power. And, when you have 5-7 parties/country, each really wants to keep their percentage of votes, so they'll keep "their" Commissioner in line or face the consequences at the polls. A protest just gets the message across in a more rapid manner.

Aren't you talking about the European Parliament? They are directly elected from the countries, and they are the ones who rejected ACTA. The commission, on the other hand, is picked by the governments of the individual countries (IIRC), which makes them two steps removed from direct elections. Much of the politics of EU for the last half decade or so has been the parliament wrestling power from the commission and bureacrats.

No no, this is completely wrong.It does not matter how many votes the party has. The commissioner is in his/her seat and makes the decisions.Each commissioner has a working field, so it is not that they are deciding together and outvoting eachother.

Commissioners are appointed in a "we from this country grant that country the commissioner for xxx when we can get the one for yyy" fashion,and then internal to the country a suitable person is found in the circles of retired politicians.These politicians usual

Commissioners aren't life positions. The previous commissioners lasted respectively 5 years, 1 year, 4 years, 1 year, 1 year. Gucht came in during 2010. Presumeably when everyone runs out of patience with him, he might be persuaded to go spend some time with his family.

Honestly, I am surprised they tried again this quick. Normally the politicians let such a controversial issue die down and then slips it under the radar when no-one is watching. This will be interesting to watch....

And that is more or less what this thing has become: a rider. The controversial IP-related clauses from ACTA are getting shoehorned into an otherwise normal trade agreement. They hope that MEPs will not reject the entire deal because of a "bad but small part", to paraphrase one MEP who said she isn't sure whether or not to reject the CETA if the ACTA clauses get tacked on. But that's exactly what MEPs should be crystal clear on: if they reject an agreement, they must also reject anything that has the agreement tacked on as a rider. There's good reason to be clear on that right now; it means that the people negotiating CETA know that they should not add the ACTA stuff if they want to have any hope of the agreement passing parliament. And it is pretty much the only way MEPs can effectively influence the contents of the agreement.

It's interesting to note that some MEPs might actually fall for this; they do not want to reject a good agreement because of one bad rider, no matter how hard they opposed ACTA. "Sure, I am not too happy about this clause regarding our firstborn, but on the whole this deal with the devil looks pretty sweet".

I think that's a pretty inaccurate view. IIRC, what actually happened was that this bill was drafted back when ACTA appeared to be succeeding, and so ACTA was used as a template for it. Now that ACTA has failed though, expect to see some serious revisions, or else this bill will never make it through parliament.

This is outrageous. This is NOT democracy. This pisses over all European values and laughs while doing so.

The European Parliament must demand that the EU Commission resigns immediately!

They have done it in the past, and they can do it now. This behaviour is simply UNACCEPTABLE.

The European Parliament MUST keep on fighting the EU Commission for as long as those paid saboteurs are intent on turning this planet into a giant prison where all pursuit of culture creation, happiness and quality of life is subservi

I totally agree with this, but the whole Parliament has to agree also... Do we simply begin by sending them email or directly calling them (maybe http://piphone.lqdn.fr/?setlang=en [piphone.lqdn.fr] will be available soon, as it was for ACTA) asking for them to get rid of this screwing commission ?

Been there, done that. One of my MEPs, Bill Newton Dunn wrote to his constituents,

ACTA (the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement)

MEPs experienced a prolonged deluge of emails from geeks around the world - but less than forty came from the East Midlands - using identical wording arguing that the ACTA treaty should be destroyed because of dangers to their personal freedom.

Western industries, on the other hand, argued strongly that they need protection from counterfeiting and from free downloading from the internet. But they were too logical and they failed to deluge MEPs in a similar way.

The result was an overwhelming defeat for the treaty. I was one of the few who defied the torrent and voted in favour because I believe that if you have to pay for something in a shop you should also pay for it on the internet, but geeks say everything should be free on the internet.The Commissioner says the treaty is not dead and will be brought back.

Afterwards, triumphant geeks emailed from around the world. Two geeks unwisely gave their game away, by warning about their next targets, the EU-Canadian free trade agreement and also "INDECT" which is a research project in the area of intelligent security systems performed by several European universities since 2009 and funded by the EU.

Amongst the rebuttals, references and insights my reply contained, I did query whether he was corrupt or merely ignorant. Sadly his reply suggested he had no intention of learning about the underlying issues, and actually stated that ACTA opponents "prefer to buy for free".

I've now queried whether he's a cunt or not, but haven't had a response.

Sounds like usual '**** off, we know what we are doing, and errr, we didn't copied ACTA text there, it just happened to to be there! So, nothing to worry about, no ACTA!' when someone is caught red-handed. And sorry, no official draft available for everyone to analyze - no trust.

...we need actual penalties on politicians who undermine the constitution and such likes.

Right now, they can try, try again until it gets through, because being a politician is one of the few jobs where failures have no consequences whatsoever.

Ah, you'll now say, "but come next election..." - obviously, that's not how it works. Next election, people will vote again based on posters and TV spots, not on a performance evaluation. Everyone knows that, including the politicians.

Politics is a force that's moving into some direction. Politicians are just faces that speak for that force. I have no idea what it is, but I know politicians are not important. Look at the last 12 years in US. In reality, nothing changed, it's just following the flow, and things are happening and ending naturally.. one dude is not influencing those changes in any way.

Or look at the fcked up countries. In those, you have politicians that are really in power. In those cases, they run the country solely for p

Wrong. That is part of the whole picture. A single politician is just a face. But their entire profession is that force.

It's not an accident that in most western countries the two major parties have become pretty much identical. It's not a coincidence that they get closer and closer to an even split in votes. This is the system that guarantees them the maximum reliability and predictability.

Can't we throw these assholes in jail, or kill them or something, just to put an end to this madness? They obviously don't care at all how unpopular or harmful this legislation is, or else they would have given it up (what's this? their third attempt?).